I
don’t know why, but I became paranoid this morning (no, I wasn’t on drugs, but
I sure wished I were). I was walking from the library to my car when, all of a sudden, I couldn’t
shake the feeling that I was about to be attacked, so I watched everyone
closely, hoping they wouldn’t look at me. My next stop was
Costco, which is a large box-store (as such places are called in America). I hate most big stores, but I love Costco—just not today though. God, but I wanted out
of that place. Then, I got to observing the dance that we all perform in
crowded situations just to avoid bumping into one another. I focused upon this
dance, and it enabled me to reflect upon how cooperative people are, and that made
my fear tolerable.

Like what I wrote about my mind and my heart sometimes being
in conflict, today it was my mind and my fears. I often feel claustrophobic
when I can’t leave a crowded place, and that’s how my morning was, only
worse. I’m home now, and peacefully alone in this quiet room. Other than being paranoid
at times on marijuana, I’ve never experienced anything like today, and I
think it might be a small taste of how it feels to live in a place where
people really do want to harm you.

Tonight. At 6:00 p.m.,
I went to a mass/rosary recitation at Resurrection Episcopal, and I felt as
happy and peaceful there as I felt freaked-out this morning. It’s not just
church I need, it’s the Episcopal Church, and not just any Episcopal Church,
but a high church with incense,
candles, holy water, altar bells, formality, and solemnity. I can put my
heart into every word I say in such a setting without believing them
literally. They possess me. Their beauty, their antiquity, the closeness I feel to those who are saying the same words and making the same gestures, is no
less strange and beautiful to me than anything that’s strange and beautiful,
whether I’m among people or in nature, whether I’m straight or on drugs. I don’t know how anyone could love high church more than I, or approach it more joyfully. On days when I know I
will be going to mass, I count the hours. No one would ever suspect that I grew
up in a church that considered ritual and ornamentation to be Satanic, but even
back then, I missed what I had never had, and now I’m tired of depriving myself
of it.

The
day after George’s funeral a few weeks ago, I wrote to the priest at
Resurrection: “I’m an atheist pure and simple and through and through, yet I
keep being drawn-in by religion.” He wrote, “I am not a Christian who believes
that believing correctly, that thinking correctly, has much to do with our
relationship to God.” Years ago, another priest had written: “I accept atheism as a valid
spiritual path.” Based upon what these priests, various lay people, and some
prominent Episcopal theologians have said or written, I think it likely that I
could find limited acceptance in this, the only denomination that I’m drawn to, so is
the problem with it or with me? I just know that I leave an Episcopal “high mass” a
different person, a more peaceful and happy person, and I fully believe that my life would go better if I could consistently allow myself that.

Iain,
who is one of the staff at Resurrection, is a female-to-male transgender person who said as much during a Sunday School theology class he teaches. Last night, I told him about my father, about how he
thought he was the only transgender person in the world until he was in
his sixties and read a Life Magazine
article about Jan Morris. I asked Iain whether he felt accepted by his denomination*, and he said, no, not entirely, and certainly not in every congregation.
Then it hit me that he isn’t only
like my father, he’s also like me in that I know I’ll never be accepted by many
people in the church. They might not demand that I explain by what right I take communion in their church, but they’ll always resent my presence, and I’ll always know that nothing I might say could change that. I believe that this congregation will be more tolerant
than most (“a place for misfits,” I’ve heard it called), and I’m also
encouraged by the non-traditional pronouncement that the priest makes as he extends the
wine and the bread toward the people before communion, “This is God’s table. All are welcome here.” Then he proceeds
to serve all, including small children, and including
me. My heart opens when I reflect upon his acceptance of me because I know what it means. It means that he cares more about love than dogma, and I’ve found that to be rare. *The following link contains the church's position on homosexuality and transgender:http://www.episcopalchurch.org/page/lgbt-church